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With balloting as big a problem as ever in 0-60 handicaps at Wolverhampton et al that attract 40+ entries per race and only 13 can take part, is it really a case that the prize money is insufficient? If you can attract full fields for less than 5 grand, where is the economic sense in giving out further?
grasshopper, my hero.
how many of these jockey’s on corruption charges are out of n.h. racing ?
on which course to bulldoze first i would go wolverhampton, southwell, and great lieghs (straight after the dozers move out)The tracks you suggest as targets are surely only worthy of tertiary strikes, strawbear. We absolutely have to start with the biggies.
Personally, I am steering well clear of the “Flat is bent – Jumps is clean” argument. Racing is what it is, and legerdemain exists under both codes.
Welcome to the forum, Lydia……..if thats your real name.
Well said Lydia .. it’s about time that someone in the industry started pointing out that the people who are manipulating racing to their own ends, the bookies, may well not have the long view in mind.
It seems that if they don’t get exactly what they want, it’s toys out of the pram .. TurfTV for example.
Welcome to the forum Lydia,
I have to take issue with a couple of parts of your article. Firstly you state that the lizards ‘are actively redirecting punters from this low-margin sport to high-margin alternatives’. This is simply not the case – the bit about the redirecting might be, but you’ve got the margins the wrong way around.
FOBTs work to margins of around 2.7%, our ‘low margin sport’ now weighs in at around ten times that thanks to some lavish hospitality the lizards heaped upon Lord Donoghue and the destruction of the racing programme bought about by Peter Savill and his descendants.
I’m not just nit-picking here – fail to grasp these facts and you fail to grasp the main reason for horse racing’s decline. Five years ago the betting shop punter would be getting 11/8 about an 11/2 poke being placed in a four place handicap, today he is more likely to be betting in a pseudo handicap, where he’ll get a similar price about a 7/1 poke getting placed. What are the true chances of each horse getting placed? roughly 2.4 and 3.5 respectively.
Five years ago a punter composing an each-way yankee of the former, would land three placed horses (giving him a slight profit) one time in six and four placed horses one time in 33. The respective figures today are one time in fifteen and one time in 150! Whereas before he’d wait one month between drinks, it’s now five months and he’s died of thrist in the meantime and moved to the low margin numbers rackets.
Betting shop punters have been painted as price inelastic inummerates and the whole racing calendar is now designed to fleece them. Events have shown that they’re not as price inelastic as racing’s rulers thought. Even if they can’t calculate over-rounds they can tell that they haven’t had a decent pick up for months on end and get disheartened with the impossible racing.
The real reason the lizards want to wheen punters off racing aren’t to do with margins, they are about control, lack of overheads and lack of levy associated with their numbers rackets. They see high margins on racing as a means to an end – the end of racing.
The second quibble I have is that you are painting racing’s rulers as being people trying their hardest in racing’s interests under difficult circumstances. I wouldn’t be so kind – they know exactly what they are doing and are conspiring with the lizards to destroy racing in Britain. It’s high time that a register of racing rulers’ interests was established where they are forced to disclose any payment in kind they have recieved from the lizards.
Hi Lydia – may you long flourish in your endeavours.
SwallowCottage – why should racing rely on young people betting or anyone betting? Does football need to rely on gambling?
Perhaps someone could explain this.
My simplistic views on the viability of racing are these:
(1) Why are ludricous prices paid for horses through the sales ring?
(2) Are some trainer fees justified? Consider wages paid to stable staff.
(3) Why do some wealthy owners not worry what staff are paid? They are looking after some very expensive horses. How many horses are ruined by insensitive staff?
(4) Most owners do not recoup their expenses, so unless they are wealthy, why do they become owners and how do they survive financially with prize money diminishing?
(5) Why are the racecourses divided between ATR, RUK, CH4, and the BBC. Do they receive the televised revenues they need and deserve and if not, why not? Football does.
(6) How much does it cost racing in payment to those who control it?
(7) Why does televised racing persist in talking about betting, interviewing some known dubious trainers/jockeys, when they should be talking about and showing the horses.
(8) Indeed, why are horses and their characters not highlighted more?
When one of them wins a prestigious race we get a dry boring pedigree chart which means very little to most people. Why not pictures of the stallion/broodmare involved and a short archive clip of a race won by them. Judging from the popularity of films/books it’s a shame that only once these horses are dead is the public made aware of them.
Even the most moderate horses have characters that quite a few people and children would enjoy hearing about.I seriously must be missing something here.
Everyone is talking about how much they are looking forward to York tomorrow (or later today – have I really been studying that long
), everyone is talking about their favourite festivals and giving great reasons for liking them – yet on the other hand, there is a thread about racing’s ‘bleak future’I will pose the question again – what ‘bleak future’?
Like I said earlier, I come from Stockton on Tees and my local track was closed down many moons ago, and as a teenage kid I heard of racing’s bleak future. That was over 20 years ago, when Aintree was nothing but a dump – something you never saw watching the Grand National on tv at home. Betting shops were a dive, full of smoke, no seating, no refreshments, and a pork pie wedging the door open to get some fresh air into the shop. Racing was restricted to Channel 4 racing on a weekend, and the occassional BBC coverage, placing a last minute bet meant dashing 200 yards down the road in the pouring rain to get to your local betting shop, and sometimes, the only way of finding out a result was to buy the paper the next morning – that’s if you weren’t lucky enough to follow the race ‘live’ on Ceefax Channel 674.
Yet that prediction of a bleak future has led us to this current day, with more racing than ever before (more choice), racing available on at least 4 different tv channels (more choice), more bookmakers than ever before (more choice), more evening racing than ever before (more choice), Sunday racing (more choice), family fun days and theme days at race meetings (more choice), many different ways of placing a bet (more choice), – then you can add the introduction of AW racing, new racecourses appearing, not disappearing, refurbishments and re-devlopments at top tracks, global racing etc – oh, and the horse racing is not too bad either!
OK, prize money might not be as good as it could be, but when has it ever been as good as it could be? OK, there might be more race horses in training than ever before, but isn’t that down to the fact there are more races than ever so why is that such a bad thing. And as for the FOBT machines, well the only people I see on them in my betting shop are people who never had bets anyway, they were always the Fruit Machine type of people, not horse racing type of people.
OK, before you all jump down my throat I totally agree that my view and opinions are by far from a ‘punter’ perspective as I am not fortunate to be involved in racing as an owner or a similar role – but as a punter, I would say horse racing has never been better and continues to grow and grow and I really can’t see where the ‘bleak future’ is.
‘Bleak future’ – what ‘bleak future’?
Mike
As mentioned before I don’t really understand people who complain about too many races.You don’t have to bet all these races, you can select the best betting races. And the more races are run the more good prices you will find.
Another point is, what do you wanna do with all the horses? Thoroughbreds are born to run. They would be bored if the had to stand around in the stalls. You are lucky that you have so many horses in England.Hi Lydia – may you long flourish in your endeavours.
SwallowCottage – why should racing rely on young people betting or anyone betting? Does football need to rely on gambling?
Perhaps someone could explain this.
My simplistic views on the viability of racing are these:
(1) Why are ludricous prices paid for horses through the sales ring?
(2) Are some trainer fees justified? Consider wages paid to stable staff.
(3) Why do some wealthy owners not worry what staff are paid? They are looking after some very expensive horses. How many horses are ruined by insensitive staff?
(4) Most owners do not recoup their expenses, so unless they are wealthy, why do they become owners and how do they survive financially with prize money diminishing?
(5) Why are the racecourses divided between ATR, RUK, CH4, and the BBC. Do they receive the televised revenues they need and deserve and if not, why not? Football does.
(6) How much does it cost racing in payment to those who control it?
(7) Why does televised racing persist in talking about betting, interviewing some known dubious trainers/jockeys, when they should be talking about and showing the horses.
(8) Indeed, why are horses and their characters not highlighted more?
When one of them wins a prestigious race we get a dry boring pedigree chart which means very little to most people. Why not pictures of the stallion/broodmare involved and a short archive clip of a race won by them. Judging from the popularity of films/books it’s a shame that only once these horses are dead is the public made aware of them.
Even the most moderate horses have characters that quite a few people and children would enjoy hearing about.Wanna add something to point 5.
For people who can’t recieve these chanels on tv and who wanna watch the races online they have to pay two fees – for ATR and RUK. So why can’t the two companies cooperate and offer all tracks for one fee? Okay, ATR offers free replays, that’s great!
Next problem: If you live outside UK and IRE like me, you have no access to RUK. ATR is available for international customers now.
And finally one more minus for RUK: it doesn’t work an my Apple, ATR does.
Fortunately ther are some betting sites that offer videos of RUK tracks also.Glenn,
Some perceptive points, but I can’t agree that the major high street bookmakers are trying to wean us off racing altogether.
Yes, it is high overheads, but it’s also high margin and probably equally as important to overall profitability in terms of contribution to recovery of costs as the FOBTs and sports betting.
Glenn, your estimate of the margin bookmakers are achieving on UK horse racing is way off the mark. In theory they may have a 27% margin but in reality this figure is closer to the FOBT percentage.
My only concern about "low" prize money is that it possibly encourages corruption by those seeking to turn a profit. But that could be very tenuous
Frankly, if the sport was so uneconomic for owners, then they would drift away. It might be baffling to some that premiership crowds are the highest theyve been for decades with horrendous ticket prices, but there must be something about the experience (and the overall economic conditions) to keep people on board
When there is that demand, then whats the problem with providing the races to fulfil it? Does the net cost (if there is one) of these races really impact the higher level of the sport?
Racing would have a better idea of what step to take if it had a more detail understanding of how its product works commercially for bookmakers. However, they do not share this vital information. This is a point that the BHA will be raising with the Gambling Commission when the latter comes into being next month.
It would be a welcome move if the bookmakers were issued with a ‘legal’ obligation to reveal this information as I rather suspect they’d much rather not, particularly if it involved divluging turnover/profit margin/sp overround by race-type.
Overrounds and profit margins are two entirely different things – on horseracing at least. Ask any Irish on course bookmaker…
TDK – I’ll ask a British based lizard instead: what are the achieved margins on horse racing in the shops post-SP reforms?
I did some freelance work for an offshore based online bookmaker and they were achieving 6.2% net on UK horse racing. The same firm were looking to add Tote betting as their margin from the cut would be better!
), everyone is talking about their favourite festivals and giving great reasons for liking them – yet on the other hand, there is a thread about racing’s ‘bleak future’
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